Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can): Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution by Peter Matthiessen Page A
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
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them, you just wave back.”
As he spoke Chavez stopped to pat a mangy dog, which
flinched away from him; he retraced his steps a little ways
to squat and talk to it. He liked dogs very much, he said,
but had never owned one; he petted the dog for a long time.
“ ‘Hay más tiempo que vida’ —that’s one of our dichos .
‘There is more time than life.’ We don’t worry about time,
because time and history are on our side.”
Children and a woman called to him from the shady yard
near the corner, and he called back, “Hi! ¡Poquito! Hello! ¿Cómo está? ” Still walking, he asked the woman whether
her husband was still working en la uva (“in the grape”).
Cheerily she said yes. The woman’s house was adjacent to
the old Union office, now the hiring hall at the corner of
Asti Street which supplies workers to Union ranches in the
Delano area. The present Union offices, in the Pink
Building, are next door. This is the southwest corner of Delano,
and across the street, to the south and west, small patches of
vineyard stretch away. The hiring hall, originally a grocery,
is in poor repair due to old age and cheap construction, as
well as several hit-and-run assaults by local residents. “One
truck backed right into it,” Chavez said, bending to show
me the large crack in the wall. “Practically knocked down
the whole thing. See?” He straightened. “They broke all
these windows. One time they threw a soaked gasoline rag
through the window—that just about did it. But someone
saw them throw the fire rag and called the fire department,
and they put it on the radio, and my brother Richard was
listening and took off and got over here quick; he had it out
before the fire department got here.” Chavez shook his
head. “One second more and the whole thing would have
gone.” He laughed suddenly. “Man, they used to come here
and shoot fire arrows into the roof with bows and arrows!
We had to keep a ladder and a hose on hand for a long
time.”
In the late afternoon, outside the motel where I was staying,
I ran into the blond boy I had seen that morning staring
at Chavez from the pickup truck. He turned out to be a
nephew of a local grower, and was working in the vineyards
for the summer before going to college. He had stared at
Chavez because one of the foremen in the truck had said
that those Mexicans on Albany Street were probably some
of Chavez’s men, and now he was surprised to learn that he
had actually seen Chavez himself: as I had already discovered,
most of the growers had never laid eyes on this
dangerous figure and probably would not recognize him if
they did.
The nephew was handsome, pleasant and polite; he
called me “sir.” He said that although his generation felt less
violently than their fathers, and that some sort of farm
workers union seemed inevitable, the Delano growers
would let their grapes rot in the fields before signing a union
contract with Chavez. I asked if this was because Chavez
was a Mexican. No, he said, it was because Chavez was out
for himself and had no real support; even that three-day
fast last winter had been nothing but a publicity stunt.
When I questioned this, he did not defend his views but
merely shrugged; like a seedless California fruit, bred for
appearances, this boy lacked flavor.
He asked, “Do you like California?” Rightly bored by his
own question, he gazed at the glaring blue-and-orange
panels of the motel façade. “I think Delano is supposed to
be the flower capital of the world,” he said.
At dark I went to the Guadalajara restaurant, overlooking
U.S. 99, where I had good beer and tortillas, and listened to
such jukebox songs as “Penas a la corazón” and “Tributo a
Roberto F. Kennedy.” Seeking directions to this place,
which is a farm workers restaurant, I earned the suspicion
of the motel manager. “Guadalajara? That’s a Mexican
restaurant, ain’t it?” In this small town of 12,000, he did
not know where it was. Standing
As he spoke Chavez stopped to pat a mangy dog, which
flinched away from him; he retraced his steps a little ways
to squat and talk to it. He liked dogs very much, he said,
but had never owned one; he petted the dog for a long time.
“ ‘Hay más tiempo que vida’ —that’s one of our dichos .
‘There is more time than life.’ We don’t worry about time,
because time and history are on our side.”
Children and a woman called to him from the shady yard
near the corner, and he called back, “Hi! ¡Poquito! Hello! ¿Cómo está? ” Still walking, he asked the woman whether
her husband was still working en la uva (“in the grape”).
Cheerily she said yes. The woman’s house was adjacent to
the old Union office, now the hiring hall at the corner of
Asti Street which supplies workers to Union ranches in the
Delano area. The present Union offices, in the Pink
Building, are next door. This is the southwest corner of Delano,
and across the street, to the south and west, small patches of
vineyard stretch away. The hiring hall, originally a grocery,
is in poor repair due to old age and cheap construction, as
well as several hit-and-run assaults by local residents. “One
truck backed right into it,” Chavez said, bending to show
me the large crack in the wall. “Practically knocked down
the whole thing. See?” He straightened. “They broke all
these windows. One time they threw a soaked gasoline rag
through the window—that just about did it. But someone
saw them throw the fire rag and called the fire department,
and they put it on the radio, and my brother Richard was
listening and took off and got over here quick; he had it out
before the fire department got here.” Chavez shook his
head. “One second more and the whole thing would have
gone.” He laughed suddenly. “Man, they used to come here
and shoot fire arrows into the roof with bows and arrows!
We had to keep a ladder and a hose on hand for a long
time.”
In the late afternoon, outside the motel where I was staying,
I ran into the blond boy I had seen that morning staring
at Chavez from the pickup truck. He turned out to be a
nephew of a local grower, and was working in the vineyards
for the summer before going to college. He had stared at
Chavez because one of the foremen in the truck had said
that those Mexicans on Albany Street were probably some
of Chavez’s men, and now he was surprised to learn that he
had actually seen Chavez himself: as I had already discovered,
most of the growers had never laid eyes on this
dangerous figure and probably would not recognize him if
they did.
The nephew was handsome, pleasant and polite; he
called me “sir.” He said that although his generation felt less
violently than their fathers, and that some sort of farm
workers union seemed inevitable, the Delano growers
would let their grapes rot in the fields before signing a union
contract with Chavez. I asked if this was because Chavez
was a Mexican. No, he said, it was because Chavez was out
for himself and had no real support; even that three-day
fast last winter had been nothing but a publicity stunt.
When I questioned this, he did not defend his views but
merely shrugged; like a seedless California fruit, bred for
appearances, this boy lacked flavor.
He asked, “Do you like California?” Rightly bored by his
own question, he gazed at the glaring blue-and-orange
panels of the motel façade. “I think Delano is supposed to
be the flower capital of the world,” he said.
At dark I went to the Guadalajara restaurant, overlooking
U.S. 99, where I had good beer and tortillas, and listened to
such jukebox songs as “Penas a la corazón” and “Tributo a
Roberto F. Kennedy.” Seeking directions to this place,
which is a farm workers restaurant, I earned the suspicion
of the motel manager. “Guadalajara? That’s a Mexican
restaurant, ain’t it?” In this small town of 12,000, he did
not know where it was. Standing
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